This is my book of drawings, called “There’s Something Down There”, which came out very recently on the fantastic independent press 38th Street Press. 38th Street Press is run by the artist Josh Smith, and Todd Amicon.
So here’s how this came to be. I illustrated Richard Hell’s The Voidoid which came out this summer on 38th, I went to New York for the launch and that’s how I met Josh. Then, this autumn, Josh was asked to pick two “under-known” artists for an exhibition at Andrea Rosen Gallery, he picked me and I got to go to New York again in December. When I was hanging out with Josh and Todd at Josh’s studio he suggested we do an artist’s book together, ‘cause he’s really cool like that. Since I know he likes to do things fast as soon as the idea is there, and I’m the same, I suggested I give him the drawings I’d done so far in my notebook to make a book of. I was in NY for 6 days, this was maybe the 3rd day and I’d done about 40 drawings by then. I did another 60 or so drawings and gave them to Josh before I went back home, and that was how it happened.
Math looking at the drawings.
The cover is a drawing/collage/thing I did when I was in Josh’s studio, I left it there and Josh kept it and later suggested it for the cover of the book.
Some of the drawings:
Some of the drawings have tv show titles in them, I did those on the first day when I was jetlagged and watching tv to stay awake.
This was just a note to Josh and Todd that I put with the drawings, but I should’ve known they’d put it in the book.
This drawing was from Josh’s exhibition opening at Deitch Projects that I went to:
This drawing came from some of Josh’s fish paintings which reminded me of the Midgard Serpent:
Some miscellaneous notes:
- At the bottom of one drawing I’ve noted to myself that I was reading Isaac Asimov’s short stories vol. 2 at the time (stuff like that helps me remember when I look through old notebooks). Please do not read that book, it had a few good shorts to start, but the rest was torturously bad.
- The book features cameos from our own Dennis, Math and Alan (plus one of Dennis' theatre collaboration partners Jonathan Capdevielle)! Alan’s name isn’t on the drawing of him, but if you’ve seen Fantastic Mr. Fox, just look for the one with the Kylie eyes.
- The scans in the book are cleaner and nicer than these.
- The inside cover is what was on the flip side of the cardboard I made my collage thing (the cover) on.
- There’s a typo on the back cover that we didn’t change because we thought it was funny.
- All my photos from New York can be seen here.
- The title of the book comes from this Sonic Youth song:
That’s it! You can buy it HERE, and there are a few more drawings at that link too. Take a look at the rest of 38th Street’s catalogue, they have some really cool stuff and make beautiful, high quality books.
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p.s. Hey. This weekend we celebrate another watershed moment in the work and, mm, career of one of the amazing people whom this blog gets to call a distinguished local. At my behest, the great Kier put together this post to announce and preview the first 'official' book to gather together some his unique and powerful drawings into a widely available printed form. Please spend your local time perusing the gifts at hand and commenting in their regard should you feel the spirit. If you're not too strapped, do consider rewarding yourself with a copy of the book and supporting our brilliant pal. Thanks so much, Kier. I guess it's May Day. I'm not sure what that entails Paris-wise, but the day is still young. I've consolidated my request for blog birthday gifts into an announcement at the top of the 'news' column. Please send something. Otherwise, the blog will feel all weird, and ... whatever, let's go. ** Little foal, Hey. Very nice Bataille haul wending its way to you there. I don't think I've read 'The Cradle of Humanity'. But if it's pink, it must be something. Whenever you get around to it, tell me what it is please. Until I met Yury, I always cut my own hair with paper scissors and not even using a mirror, no less. People used to compliment me on my skills until Yury started cutting my hair whereupon they came clean about how shitty my hair used to look. I can't shave my head, not that I've ever wanted to anyway, because I have a big dent/scar under my hair from when a friend accidentally hit me on the head with an axe when I was 11. That was a really beautiful thing you wrote about that guy from your school. Kudos, and more. ** Slatted Light, Greetings, maestro. Sure, I'd be happy to. Everyone, the source of wonder and genius known around here as Slatted Light has an announcement/ plea he wants you to read and seriously consider. This is him: 'The administration at Middlesex University in the UK have announced that they are shutting down their philosophy program. Middlesex is one of the pre-eminent non-elite university philosophy programs in Europe and one of the most well-respected and innovative institutional bulwarks of continental theory. There's an air of a test case to this - in the sense that philosophy at Middlesex is not only renowned for its reputation but is also the top performing program at the university, even meeting the managerial demands - which may be its greatest offense. If it gets axed, the consequences for philosophy as basically constituting non-essential spending as a discipline in itself would be staggering and far-reaching. Anyhow, without any further preamble, please go here and sign this petition to help lend international weight in the fight to stop this travesty from taking place. And if you can link this petition on your websites, tell friends and family, it'd be such a good thing and so appreciated. Thanks so much.' I signed the petition. It's very easy to do, and it's important. Please do, okay? ** Bernard Welt, Actually, if you look at that glare on the wall behind Edvard Scissorhands with your head tilted to the right, it looks like a human skull. I'm not kidding. Check it out. Subliminal message? God's secret judgement call and command? ** Bollo, I'm sure the performance went really well. Come on, it was you, man. Plus, how wrong can you go with long drones and glitch? I'm not offended by the American reference thing in the slightest. Oh, I really like the H-pop theory. I love brainiac readings and hype on new music. It's poetry to me. I eat it up. I read The Wire every month like a vacuum. I've heard a bit of the headrush stuff, and more is on my way. Vodka Soap, totally. That's my favorite Clark stuff too. The new Mego Emeralds album is really good. Peter gave me an advance copy a couple of weeks ago. It raises their game, I think. ** Empty Frame, Symi ... never heard of it, which makes it seem most promising. Great weekend right back at you. ** Changeling, Yeah, you don't strike me as rude. I thought his big selling point was looking bored when people talk to him. I must have a thing for that. Strange. The blog's dissimilarity to a dinner plate is one of its biggest weaknesses. Man, 'electricity' is great. One of my very favorites so far. It's a beauty. If you send stuff to Pank, I say consider including it. ** David Ehrenstein, Oh, you never saw that Raymond Burr photo? It was being surreptitiously passed around a lot back in the, mm, 70s? At least in my circles. Wow, that is major literary news! Dick's 'Exegesis' at long last! Book-wise, this year is turning out to be one for the ages. ** Tonyoneill, 'Trash Humpers' sounds amazing. I can not wait, although if it gets released in France, I'll be pretty surprised. I think 'Mr. Lonely' was out here for about three days playing in a single little basement of a theater in St. Michel. Thanks for reminding Michael to send me a copy. I'm sure the lack of galleys explains it. Running out of galleys sounds like a very good sign of things. ** David, But do you have the evil in you to make endmein2010 truly happy? ** Patrick deWitt, Hey, Patrick! How's the new novel going? When I have to give a present to someone who has everything, I go for a gag gift. ** Steven Vineis, It was my server that was the problem. I won't go into the tedious details, but Safari just suddenly lost its mind or something, long story short. Thanks for link. That does help. Everyone, d.l. and writer extraordinaire Steven Vineis is posting new short fiction works on his blog, and he's great, and they no doubt are as well, so head on over there this weekend like me. I'll dig in, and the place is already bookmarked, you bet. I couldn't possibly agree with you more about this being a fantastic time for literature. And for American literature, no less. That's spoken as a lifelong Europhile. Blake, Justin, and the list of other fantastic new writers goes on and on and grows by the day. I swear we're in the beginning phase of a renaissance. I've been around a while, and I'm telling you, what's happening is the real deal and unprecedented, I think. So, yeah. You enjoy your weekend to the utmost, man. ** Stan_cz, I thought I remembered right. Well, hopefully someone will read your play somewhere and want to produce it, at which point you can decide what's best. It's just so cool when people read something and the pleasure it gives makes them want to do something of their own with it, whether that's producing a play or wanting to turn a novel into a movie or just feeling inspired to incorporate the pleasure into their own writing or whatever. You might one day meet someone with whom you could collaborate on a production of your writing with total satisfaction like I do with Gisele. You never know. I never would have imagined that her and my collaboration would turn out so happily. ** Wolf, Well, actually, dead boys can do shit if you're into dead boys. I'm not saying I am, mind you. But one of the characters in my new novel assigns a dead boy some, err, chores which he, err, fulfills to both of their, err, satisfaction. Great slave feedback, buddy. Hey, what happens in Paris on May Day? I haven't heard of a thing. I guess I'll go wander around. ** _Black_Acrylic, They're you, man. The specs. I'm digging this new Ben-in-progress. What are you going to do re: your hair? I think your hair's pretty cool as is. The intersecting ovals thing is quite striking. Anyway, ... Everyone, _Black_Acrylic has new specs, and I figured that you would want to see the new him. He's here. ** Trees, Wait, so your tonight is my last night, right? The comments arena is so relatively timeless, I get confused sometimes. So was he a FTM and how's its afterglow and all that good stuff? I would never have guessed 'Autobahn'. Interesting, nice. My spidey senses -- I can't believe I just typed that; please shoot me -- were hearing something more akin to a deafening crunch. I read the first couple of your XLR8R pieces before my novel returned to whirlpool mode. Good stuff. ** Alan, Hi, Alan. Oh, NB. Where's he been? I think I owe him an email. Yeah, I do. I did meet Patti Smith. Here's the story. I got my hands on a copy of her early 45 'Hey Joe', and I adored it, and I read that she was a fellow Rimbaud worshipper, and I'd just made a few silkscreened Rimbaud t-shirts, so I sent her one with a gushing letter. She wrote back warmly. I was attending Pasadena City College at the time, and I asked her if she and her band would consider coming out to play at the college. She said yes, she would, and for an insanely low fee. I asked the powers that be at the school if I could organize a Patti Smith concert, and they said 'never heard of her, no'. It was insane and massively shortsighted of them, but there you go. Patti and I corresponded a little, and she eventually came out to LA to play the Whisky A-Go-Go, and I went, of course, and she and I hung out backstage for a long time. She was incredibly cool and sweet. That was the only time I ever met her, but we corresponded a little after that, and she gave me work for the Rimbaud issue of Little Caesar. That's the story. ** Steevee, Hey. He was happy, I guess, because I got an email from him yesterday expressing happiness, and I urged him to join the gang here, and I hope he will. ** Alex, Hey. Oh, thanks for the alert. I'm going to put together the show/post thing I mentioned now, soon. Tikiboy seems to have completely retired. I haven't even seen an escort ad from him in forever. ** Sypha, That would explain the eye pain, yes. Just looking at the spine of the New Testament makes my eyes hurt. ** Alter Clef Records, Nick! Your moniker threw me for a few sentences. Well, very cool about the label. Nice name too. Everyone, the major dude of music and much more Nick Hudson has started a record label, and you should get in on the groundfloor. Start here. May I also compliment you on the album title 'My Antique Son'. That's a corker. Me, I'm good, very busy, almost too busy, but good, even very good. New theater piece, novel, LHotB stuff, etc. I've missed you tons too, man, and, yeah, let's gab at your convenience. Lots o' love. ** Joseph, Hard to tell re: the ants' realness. There's been some color adjustment on that picture, but I think they are. Real, that is. That slave is clearly worth his weight in gold. Who gave the commencement speech? How's that Aaron Burch book? I'm well, it seems. A little touch of spring pollen nasal weirdness, but ... shrug. Happy May Day. You doing anything to mark it? Is anyone? ** Justin, I thought you and I were the only straight guys here. I feel so lonely all of a sudden. The recurring motifs of dog, etc. were intentional. I'm a very intentional guy, it's weird. You can send me your birthday gift right now, if you want. The sooner the better 'cos it helps me with the work load of building the post or, I hope, posts. ** Jeff, Hey, man. Quite the cover art on that Crawford book. If you review it, do please alert us to the spot, okay? ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Hey. Oh, yes, Monroe ... I did see 'River of No Return' a million years ago. I can hardly remember it now, but the faded memory feels kind of warm. Oh, shit, you didn't know what I meant by 'blaze' because I've been spelling the word completely wrong. How embarrassing. It's 'blasé'. According to the dictionary definition, it means 'listlessness and dissatisfaction resulting from lack of interest'. My headache was a one day affair thankfully. That Bendy quip/moment was satisfying and charming. I'd be happy too. Even my confusion would be upbeat. My day: Showered. I always shower first thing, I just never mention it. I met up with Gisele, Jonathan Schatz, this guy Tomas who played a role in the radio play version of 'Jerk', and this other actor guy I didn't know and who is also named Jonathan. It was in a little rehearsal space right next to the Philippe August metro station if anyone else reading this sentence knows Paris well. As I think I said yesterday, the point of the get-together was to record the voices for a scene in 'TIHYWD' where three teenagers find the dead body of a rock star in a river. In the piece, you hear but don't see the scene. So the guys' voices were playing the teens' voices. It took a while to get them to pronounce the English words correctly. French people have a devil of a time pronouncing words beginning with 'th', as I might have mentioned. So I spent a while showing them how you put the tip of your tongue against the bottom of your front teeth to say 'th'. And there were other pronunciation issues in general. Then, when they got that down, Gisele and I showed them how we wanted them to act the parts. Tomas' teen boy is an asshole type. Jonathan S's teen boy is very stoned in a sweet, comical way. The other Jonathan's teen boy is nerdy and helpful. When they got all of that right, we recorded. It went pretty well. That took a big chunk of the afternoon. Then I came home and worked on the novel for a fairly long while, slipping out to buy food because all the stores are closed this weekend for May Day. Ate, watched a documentary about early rap/hip hop on TV, smoked, got tired, closed my eyes. Have a great weekend, man, and, just as importantly, tell me all about it. ** Creative Massacre, Oh, the new NOES really does suck? Damn. I figured it would, but I hoped it had a saving grace. Shit. I'm sure I'll see it anyway, but ... shit. Good weekend to you too, pal. ** Misanthrope, Actually, Yourstarkchoice did have more recent pictures of himself, and, well, what would you expect a guy so into 'anything goes' to look like at this point, yikes, but I decided to preserve him in all of our mind's eyes as the innocent beginner he once was or pretended to be. Your doctor sucks. Your ex-job sucks. Your lack of a job sucks. Your printer sucks. In Europe, everything works and is beautiful all the time. That's to keep your recurring thought friendly. ** Enjoy the Kier extravaganza, and enjoy yourselves, each other, total strangers, and enemies until Monday. Bye.
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